Developer Puts Some Steam Into His Project

A year after its first scheduled opening date, Steam Plant Square’s developers will announce the downtown project’s first anchor tenant today.

That tenant also happens to be a developer.

Frustrated with the slow pace of leasing the converted industrial space, architect Ron Wells has decided to open a restaurant and brewery in the project.

Called Steam Plant Grill, the 8,000-square-foot restaurant is slated to open this fall, Wells said Thursday.

“It seemed like a natural thing to do to spur things along,” said Wells.

Wells will own the restaurant with his wife, Julie, and step-sons, Gage and Spencer Stromberg, through a new company called WS Hospitality.

Steam Plant Square, which is on Lincoln between First and Second, is a joint partnership between Wells and Co., Wells’ development company, and Avista Corp.

The project incorporates three buildings, including the massive 1916 steam plant, into a renovated retail, restaurant and office complex.

Originally expected to open in spring of 1998, the project has been hampered by permitting and construction delays and with difficulty in attracting tenants to the 80,000-square-foot project.

That may be changing, however. Along with the restaurant, a number of other tenants have announced they will occupy another 8,000 square feet of space.

They include the Spokane office of Coeur d’Alene-based ad agency Hanna and Associates; SGO, a stained glass company, Studio cascade, a community planning and design firm and ThinkingCap, a graphic design company.

Also filling space will be The Coffee Boiler, a cafe jointly run by Craven’s Coffee and WS Hospitality; Avista Fiber, a subsidiary of Avista Corp.; and Steam Plant Stuff, a gift store owned by the Steam Plant Square partnership.

Those commitments mean 35 percent of Steam Plant’s 45,000 square feet of net leasable area is now occupied, said Kim Pearman-Gillman, general manager of Avista Development.

Dane Hanna, president of Hanna and Associates, said the space was ideal for his company’s needs.

“If you look at what Steam Plant Square is and match it up to what an ad agency should be, it’s head and shoulders above everything in the Northwest,” Hanna said.

Helping speed the leasing process was Avista Development’s April 1 purchase of 126 parking places to the immediate north of the project that were owned by Burlington Northern. Managed by Diamond Parking, those spaces will be available to Steam Plant tenants and customers.

“The perception (among potential tenants) that we didn’t have parking has been what we’ve had to work the most on to fix,” Wells said.

Valet parking will also be available for Steam Plant Grill.

Although Wells has owned a restaurant before, he said he will hire a team to run the new venture.

While having the Wells family open a restaurant wasn’t the developers’ first choice for leasing the space, it may turn out to be the best thing for the project, said Pearman-Gillman.

“If you look at Steam Plant, you have to have someone who knows how to work with the building,” she said. “The Wellses understand the building, having worked at it for so long.”